Condemning South African authorities for suppression of Azanian people

THE spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China issued a statement on June 28, strongly condemning the reactionary South African authorities for bloody suppression of the Azanian people. The statement reads: On June 16, the black students at Soweto township on the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa, rose valiantly in a massive demonstration against the regulation of South Africa's racist Vorster authorities making Afrikaans a mandatory language in teaching. This just struggle met with immediate response and support from the broad masses of black people in South Africa and rapidly spread to many other areas. Confronted with this mass movement of the black people against apartheid and racial discrimination, the reactionary South African authorities brazenly turned loose large numbers of police and troops to carry out bloody suppression which was most brutal and cruel, resulting in a grave tragedy of more than a hundred people massacred and a thousand and more wounded. This surpassed the notorious Sharpeville incident of 1960. It is a new towering crime committed by the reactionary South African authorities against the Azanian people. The Chinese Government and people express their utmost indignation at it and strongly condemn it. This new atrocity on the part of the reactionary Vorster authorities is a last-gasp struggle put up by them in the face of the new situation of mounting upsurge in the national-liberation struggle, and particularly armed struggle, in southern Africa. In recent years, they have wantonly used counter-revolutionary dual tactics in an attempt to save themselves from their doom. While stepping up suppression with police and troops, the Vorster authorities have talked profusely about "detente," advocating "racial reconciliation" at home and blathering about "dialogue" and "peace talks" abroad, in a vain attempt to extinguish the flames of revolutionary struggle of the Azanian people, stop the African states from supporting the Azanian people's just struggle and preserve their own reactionary racist rule. Now, their naked neo-fascist atrocity has completely laid bare their counter-revolutionary dual tactics. All their perverse actions will only serve to further strengthen the will of the people in Azania and southern Africa to fight against racism and for national liberation and serve to accelerate their own doom. The Chinese Government and people have always firmly supported the Azanian and other southern African peoples in their just struggle against the white racist regimes. We are sure that the Azanian and other southern African peoples, sharpening their vigilance, strengthening their unity and persevering in struggle, will win final victory.